In the shadow of the moon: Jay Friedland, Santa Cruz’s total eclipse chaser

Share this:

Eclipse-chaser Jay Friedland will use a variety of strategies to watch the total eclipse of the sun on August 21. The Santa Cruzan is headed to Oregon for the event, which will be the 16th total solar eclipse he has seen. (Shmuel Thaler — Santa Cruz Sentinel)

But don’t expect to see many of the county’s astronomy buffs watching our skies.

Many, if not most, of them will be in the eclipse’s “path of totality” – an 80-mile wide strip stretching from Oregon to South Carolina. That strip is the only place in the country where viewers will experience a total solar eclipse, about two minutes of darkness in which the moon completely blocks the sun.

ECLIPSE CHASER

Santa Cruz resident and hobby astronomer Jay Friedland plans to be in Madras, Oregon, with about 12 of his friends, all so-called “eclipse chasers.” If all goes according to plan, the Aug. 21 total eclipse will be Friedland’s 16th to witness.

“I’m now in my third decade of chasing (total) eclipses,” said Friedland, a public policy consultant and vice president at Scotts Valley’s Zero Motorcycles. “Some of the folks have been doing it 20 years beyond that. The de facto leader of our group, Dr. Glenn Schneider, he basically has been to 33 eclipses. And he currently, I believe, holds the most time ‘in the shadow,’ as we like to say.”

“Everyone says it’s a once in a lifetime experience, so I feel particularly lucky to have done it 15 times. And knock on wood, we don’t have any weather problems, I get to see it 16 times,” Friedland said, adding “I should not jinx myself.”

THE EXPERIENCE

What does a total eclipse feel like?

“All kinds of weird things happen,” Friedland said.

First, the temperature drops as the sun disappears. Animals think it’s nighttime, and the birds start to chatter and fly home to roost, he said.

“You get this 360-degree sunrise, which is just, it’s like sunrise and sunset at the same time because you’re in the shadow of the moon,” he said.

What’s happening is that the sun and the moon are aligned with the Earth – an incredible moment, given that the sun and moon are 400 times different in size and distance from the Earth, and that our planet and the moon’s orbit are tilted, said Friedland. He also serves as a volunteer Solar System Ambassador with NASA, doing public outreach on astronomy.

Total solar eclipses aren’t rare. They occur somewhere in the world at least twice a year. What’s interesting about this one is that it crosses the U.S. – which hasn’t happened for 99 years, said Cabrillo College astronomy professor Rick Nolthenius.

Nolthenius said he remembers seeing his first total eclipse, in 1979 in Oregon, when he was a Stanford student.

“You’re in the sunlight and then all of a sudden the light begins dropping dramatically, not just where you are, but everywhere for miles around and then you’re plunged into darkness,” said Nolthenius, who will be watching this month’s eclipse in Wyoming.

What’s beautiful is the brilliant red prominences – flames around the edge of the sun – only visible during a total eclipse, he said.

“Those are actually miniature explosions on the edge of the sun, and just because of the physics of it, they glow a brilliant red,” Nolthenius said.

Also, the corona – a hot gas surrounding the sun – is visible to the naked eye, something that only happens in a total eclipse.

“It was very strange,” said Chris Angelos, Aptos resident and former president of the Santa Cruz Astronomy Club, of the first time he saw it, in the 1970s during an eclipse in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

“My experience was it was a steel gray color and very wispy.”

YOU DID WHAT?

Another interesting phenomenon is called Baily’s beads, the beams of sunlight that shine through the rough edge of the moon, just before and after the eclipse’s climax, said Friedland.

“It looks just like a little tiny-like string of diamonds,” Friedland said.

The last bead that comes through is brighter than all the others, and is known as “the diamond ring.”

During one of the diamond rings at a total solar eclipse in Bolivia in 1994, Friedland proposed to his wife.

“The best part was that she said yes,” Friedland said, laughing. “But the best part was my eclipse-chasing friends were like, ‘What? You spent 20 seconds of an eclipse doing that?'”

HOW TO SAFELY WATCH THE ECLIPSE IN SANTA CRUZ COUNTY

Sandra Faber, UC Santa Cruz astronomer: “Go to a tree and look at the shadows that are cast by the leaves of the tree. It’s very unexpected. The tree is acting like a pinhole camera. All the little spaces between the leaves are letting light through, so each little space between the leaves leaves an image of the sun on the ground. So you get thousands of crescents, bright crescents on the ground.” But, Faber said, make sure you’re not stuck in the marine fog. She suggested going to Scotts Valley or the San Lorenzo Valley.

Sarah Tuttle, Santa Cruz native and University of Washington astronomer: “Wear appropriate glasses at all times. Just because, if you’re in totality you can take your safety glasses off, but many people will not be and they should definitely not go blind. Because that’s a thing that happens.”

Rick Nolthenius, Cabrillo College astronomer: To view a solar eclipse safely, find a solar filter for your telescope, and order some eclipse-viewing glasses from Amazon. Or make your own pinhole projection by poking a few pinholes in a cardboard box, and letting the sun shine through the holes onto a piece of paper or the ground.

WATCHING THIS ECLIPSE?

Send us your photos: We will post a gallery on our website and Facebook with user-submitted photos from around the county and country. Email photos to newsrooms@santacruzsentinel.com with “Eclipse” in the subject line.